Άνθος των χαρίτων [Anthology of the virtues]

The Anthos ton chariton ("Anthology of the virtues") is a rather faithful translation of the late medieval Italian Fior(e) di virtù (first quarter of the 14th c.), and constitutes the first known printed prose text of vernacular Modern Greek literature (Venice 1529 onwards). Its many successive reprints or reeditions during a very long period, as well as its parallel printed transformation into a bilingual school textbook (Νέον άνθος χαρίτων ‑ Nuovo fior di virtù with 30 known reprints between 1755 and 1866), make it one of the most popular readings of early Modern Greek Literature.

Being a well structured composite treatise on human virtues and vices through which a range of Western theological and cultural elements were introduced for the first time into the Greek world of the Renaissance period; a wholesome reading for young and old alike with an abundance of short embedded and «exemplary» stories (exempla, «ξόμπλια»); a school textbook, and later, in its bilingual form, a self-study method of learning Italian and Greek for Greek and Italian speakers respectively, the Anthos ton chariton left its traces both in the Greek and Balkan cultural areas through its continuous printed circulation, but also through its various idiomatic manuscript versions, its translations into Slavic languages and the Romanian one, and its subsequent literary fortunes.

Edited by Dr Stamatia Koliadimou this book offers a comprehensive Introduction, followed by a "syn-optic" (parallel) philological edition of three different Modern Greek versions, and of one Italian version of the Fior(e) di virtù, namely: (1) the Greek text of a Sainte-Geneviève Parisian library’s manuscript (dated 1497); (2) the Greek text of an Andros monastery’s manuscript (1510); (3) the Greek text of the first Venetian edition by Nicolini da Sabbio (1529); the Italian text of a Marciana Venetian library’s manuscript (15th c.). The text of an Escorial library’s Greek manuscript version in learned language, and the text of a later adaptation preserved in an Iviron monastery’s manuscript (17th c.) are published separately. An Αppendix gives also the text of the Venetian edition of Nuovo fior di virtù ‑ Νέον άνθος χαρίτων (Bortoli 1764) in a modernized transcription. The book is completed by a Glossary and Index of proper names.